Just like WhatsApp plays a vital role in our lives, it has become an integral part of practically every brand’s digital transformation strategy, having been leveraged for numerous use cases across conversational commerce and customer care. Over 5 million brands now use WhatsApp Business API to offer superior customer experience to their customers.
The ease of using WhatsApp has made it significantly convenient for brands to start working with a WhatsApp chatbot. While many businesses understand the plethora of benefits WhatsApp has to offer, the most crucial part., i.e., generating traffic on WhatsApp, can be quite challenging. In this article, we look at the key strategies brands can use to generate traffic on WhatsApp.
How to Generate Traffic on Whatsapp
When it comes to forming connections with a brand to purchasing their choice of product offerings or services, it’s without a secret that WhatsApp is the most popular application for consumers. The first and most essential aspect worth considering is driving discovery and visibility.
The two primary questions to ask yourself are: How will your customers know your business is available on WhatsApp, and how will they opt-in to receive and benefit from your services across WhatsApp?
It’s worth noting that in order to get an opt-in from users before it begins communicating and engaging with them, WhatsApp will need a brand to work with, i.e., the users need to consent to communicate with your business over WhatsApp.
Below, we will look at some simple yet highly effective methods to initiate a conversation with your customers on the largest messaging channel in the world, which will ultimately help your business in generating consumer traffic on WhatsApp.
1. SMS
By default, SMS blast is the majority of businesses’ go-to strategies for tapping into to boost customer awareness regarding the fact your company has a WhatsApp channel. If you own a brand, you will most likely already have access to all your customers’ contact numbers and are already sending out SMS campaigns to each of them.
This is a fantastic way of generating a significant amount of traffic. SMS blasts can be convenient at several stages and pointers throughout your journey. This is how:
- You can use it as a 1st-level deflection for a broad-ranging user base regarding creating awareness for your users and letting them know about your WhatsApp Business channel.
- This kind of content can be triggered immediately, giving you the benefit of curating your message as required and helping considerably in the deflection rate.
- Another excellent way of using SMS is as a consent opt-in message that automatically redirects your contacts to the WhatsApp channel.
2. Website
Your company website contains a lot of information, making it the most valuable asset for your business to scale. It is where customers go when they are interested in doing business with you and when they want to look up information about their products or services.
Per a study conducted by Deloitte, 80 percent of the individuals surveyed ran a thorough search on the internet and the respective brand’s website before purchasing. Consumers’ decisions are profoundly affected by their search for information regarding a product or service.
Since your website is the first place of contact with your consumers, you must take full advantage of them and redirect them to your WhatsApp chatbot.
The plus point of acquiring links from your site is that anyone who clicks on the link will have already gotten a ton of valuable information, ensuring a higher conversion rate and of superior quality. Here is how you can generate traffic on WhatsApp from your website:
● WhatsApp Conversation Starter Button on your Website
The WhatsApp button is a valuable resource your business can add to its website. This button plays a substantial role and is accompanied by a compelling call to action towards the WhatsApp API, via which the customers or users can click to initiate a one-on-one conversation with your company.
If a user or customer clicks on this WhatsApp button from their smartphone, it will instantly redirect you and open the chat directly from the WhatsApp mobile application. Conversely, when users do this from a laptop or a desktop computer, they will be redirected to WhatsApp Web.
Your website home page is the perfect place to trigger consumers towards your WhatsApp channel. Messaging on the Home page section regarding your WhatsApp channel can be universal such as “Use WhatsApp to get in touch with us.”
The header (often the right-hand side top scroll) is another great site placement to create awareness regarding your WhatsApp channel and number. It is spontaneous and attention-grabbing.
● WhatsApp Widget
Another way of generating traffic on WhatsApp from your company site is to add a chat widget with the WhatsApp API, from where your customers and prospects can commence the conversation.
An effective way of making the interaction between the user and the widget more spontaneous is to display the “Chat with us” pop-up message. After this, the customers will need to register their contact info. Finally, the WhatsApp app will open, where the client can write to your company directly.
Similarly, if anyone is using a computer, they’ll be sent to WhatsApp web. A constantly floating WhatsApp widget or icon on every relevant page will give your customers easy access to the business as well as become a convenient way of addressing questions, concerns, inquiries, or requests.
The more prominent placement of a WhatsApp widget or a button, the greater the chance people will opt to engage with your business via WhatsApp.
3. Social Networks
In this revolutionary world, now is the best time to use social media networks to your advantage. Most of your customers are probably using at least one or all social media platforms to stay in touch with family and friends.
This gives your business an excellent opportunity to get customer opt-ins where they spend a lot of their time. The best option is direct messaging to WhatsApp, while another is creating web traffic campaigns from Facebook to boost the users’ arrival to the WhatsApp API.
Moreover, you can consider that Facebook allows brands to add their WhatsApp button organically once they have conveniently set up their WhatsApp Business. Hence, it’s vital to include a message that serves as an invitation to all your customers, users, and prospects to click on that button. One example of this can be: Click here to go to WhatsApp.
Here are the most effective options for generating traffic on WhatsApp via social media platforms:
● Ads with URLs to WhatsApp.
There’s no point in making a mountain load of investment in your business if you end up with the minimal conversion. Many companies tend to complain about this. However, certain practices can create a substantial difference. For instance, as a brand, you can make ads that contain your WhatsApp API’s URL instead of the number.
Typically, brands create ads on social media networks and directly include the digits of their WhatsApp Business number. As a result, customers are forced to register your company number on their mobile devices in order to send you a message.
Companies can benefit from higher and more effective conversion rates when they link to WhatsApp. It allows users to go straightaway to the conversation without the hassle of saving their number and keeping it saved in their contact list.
This kind of campaign enables you to create a URL with a custom message and direct it to your business. Instead of writing a message, users can simply press the button to send a message. You can use this particular technique across traffic campaigns, which ultimately permits you to vary buttons and improve your audience.
● Conversion to a Landing Page with a WhatsApp Button/Bot.
A second option for generating traffic on WhatsApp via social media is to design a landing page or a landing page with buttons aligned to WhatsApp. For this, you will need to set up the conversion pixel since it will enable better monitoring and visibility on the page.
● Built-in “Send Message by WhatsApp” Button.
The ads manager on Instagram and Facebook have the “send message by WhatsApp” button by default. This allows users to go to a conversation on the mobile app and get in touch with your business once they click the ad button. This button is available in Conversion, Message, and Traffic ad campaigns.
This campaign is exemplified as it contains the WhatsApp button along with the logo of the app, and the Facebook algorithm searches for individuals within the social media platform who have their WhatsApp account linked.
● Organic vs. Paid Marketing on Social Media Platforms
You can leverage paid or organic social media to increase consumer awareness and drive significant traffic to your WhatsApp channel.
Organic Social Media
- Account description or bio: Link-in-Bio is an excellent way of placing your WhatsApp URL permanently as it won’t get lost in the steady stream of your stories or posts. It promotes hundreds of links using a single link, especially on TikTok and Instagram, where the Profile Bio is visible.
- Instagram profile pages story highlight: Like your bio description, the highlights section on Instagram is highly visible since you can pin it to the top of your business profile. Once it is in the story, users can swipe up to start a conversation.
- In-feed posts: You can add the link to your WhatsApp in your social media posts. Organic Instagram posts do not allow you to include links; hence, users will have to dial the number relatively. This is why in-feed posts have lesser and shorter in-feed visibility because they get lost somewhere along the plethora of other posts.
Paid Social Media
- Influencer social media post: If a social media influence endorses your brand on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc., they can use a link. However, Instagram posts do not include links, so influencers can mention the numbers, and your users can dial in manually.
- Instagram Button and Facebook Ads: A one click/tap “Send Message” button will start up a WhatsApp conversation.
Instagram WhatsApp Button
Connecting your WhatsApp to Instagram can be incredibly useful for your brand as it is one of the world’s most popular and highly intuitive messaging applications. Instagram enables businesses to configure a WhatsApp button on their profile for their fans and follower base to conveniently reach out to them.
When someone taps on this button, they’ll be sent to the respective company’s WhatsApp chatbot. Here is how you can connect your Instagram with your WhatsApp Business account to generate traffic.
- Click on the “Edit Profile” tab on your Instagram and select “Contact Options.”
- Click on “WhatsApp Business Contact Number” and add your WhatsApp chatbot phone number.
- Verify your phone number with a text message.
- A button will automatically pop up on your Instagram profile, leading your followers to your WhatsApp Chatbot.
Facebook Ads to WhatsApp
The best part about promoting your business on Facebook is its ability to offer seamless integration with its numerous entities. This is exactly the case with WhatsApp. Combining WhatsApp with Facebook, the world’s most prevalent social media network gives you a remarkable potential for significant business growth.
It takes a few simple steps to connect your WhatsApp account to Facebook ads as a viable call to action and boost your return on investment (ROI) and engagement. After this, it can be relatively easy to convert all the traffic generated from your Facebook ads to profitable conversions on WhatsApp.
- Go to your Facebook Ads Manager.
- Click on “+ Create” under Campaigns to create a new campaign.
- On the pop-up screen to create a new campaign, click on the campaign objective to “Traffic” and then click on “Next.”
- Choose a name for your campaign, select a category, and then click on Next.
- On this page, select the WhatsApp option under the Traffic section.
- Under the Traffic section, choose your Facebook page. For this, you must ensure the Facebook page is already linked with your WhatsApp number, or else the WhatsApp call to action won’t work.
These simple steps can help your business receive considerable traffic via a funnel on WhatsApp from your Facebook ads. This consumer traffic will be sent to your main WhatsApp chatbot flow.
4. Email
Your email is the third most effective way of generating traffic on WhatsApp as it gives you some innovative options such as signing with your URL to WhatsApp or adding an image or banner with a link to your WhatsApp.
● Sign with URL to WhatsApp.
You can profoundly benefit from this approach if you generally include your WhatsApp Business number within your email signature. Instead of adding your number, you can simply add a URL in your email signature that invites your recipients and readers to get in touch with your company via WhatsApp.
This is an excellent way of generating traffic. It does not coerce people to register your number on their contact list. Instead, it allows them to go to the conversation straight away.
● Banner or Image with a Link to WhatsApp.
You can incorporate a banner or an image under your email signature that invites everyone to contact your business on WhatsApp.
5. Traditional Advertising
Lastly, a few traditional advertising methods can allow you to generate traffic on WhatsApp.
● QR Code
QR codes make it relatively simple for mobile traffic to reach a destination URL. All you have to do is scan the code, and your user will be redirected to the destination connected with the code.
Other traditional advertising methods include PR/media news articles and search engine ads.
About SocialEpoch
Now that you know how to generate traffic on WhatsApp, you need a reliable WhatsApp Business Integration Customer Relations Management (CRM) tool with a centralized management system and multi-agent support, such as SocialEpoch.
At SocialEpoch, you can significantly take advantage of full-fledged global leading social marketing solutions, which is our area of expertise. Our products and services comprise WhatsApp marketing, WhatsApp CRM, social fission, marketing training, social eCommerce platform, etc.
With over 300 team members, we have ample industrial experience and proactive operating technologies, which support us in serving many international clients, including eCommerce platforms, FinTech companies, gaming apps, retail brands, and many more.
Our target audience is mainly eCommerce businesses, retailers, casino/call center/cryptocurrency/consultant/lottery/real estate, and several B2B businesses. Our two most popular products are SocialEpoch WhatsApp CRM and SocialEpoch Facebook Lead Generation Tool.
1. SocialEpoch WhatsApp CRM (WaChat App is the mobile version for Android)
Here are SocialEpoch WhatsApp CRM’s key features:
- Free WhatsApp Business API
- Bulk Message Sender
- Data Synchronization
- Contact Management (easy import and export of customers and efficient way to organize customer tags and persona)
- Group Management (group member export and group broadcast, enabling you to reach your target customers as accurately as possible)
- Multi-account Login (gives you the ability to operate up to 10 WhatsApp accounts at the same time)
- Create and edit user personas (lets you sort your customers with tags and personas for personalized marketing)
- Task assignment (enables you to assign clients/tasks to your teams as per need to provide timely services)
- Customer Journey (to track customers’ behavior and document the process of acquiring leads)
- Follow-up sessions (follow up with customers and impart all the info with your group)
- WhatsApp Marketing Toolkits (develop your own site within minutes, choose from a wide variety of free content templates, and personalize your e-business card as you want)
- Professional Support
- Multilingual Support
- Smart Chatbot (collect data automatically from prospective customers and solve customer queries 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.)
- AI Exploring for Prospects (sanctioned by artificial intelligence (AI) and big data, explore your prospects on WhatsApp, and reach out to them instantly)
2. SocialEpoch Facebook Lead Generation Tool
This product provides Bulk Facebook Accounts and Account Marketing Solutions. Here are its main features:
I. Marketing Center
- Bulk Share to Groups
- Bulk Comments on Group Posts/Page Posts
- Auto Join Groups
II. Management Center
- Automatic Data Backup
- Facebook Audience Insights
- Bulk Account Management
III. Facebook Data Scraper
- Friends
- Groups
- Active Users
- Marketplace Sellers
- Pages
Using the most innovative private social marketing technologies, we at SocialEpoch aspire to provide our clients with all-encompassing lead generation approaches. If you believe in the same vision, we are eager to collaborate with you and achieve a win-win solution.
